Pune District May Face Shortage Of Beds By October 1 For COVID Patients

Saurabh Rao
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Mrunal Jadhav

Pune, September 23, 2020: Several steps are being taken for controlling the spread and making beds available for patients as the Covid-19 cases keep rising. According to the government health department reports, the Pune district will face a shortage of beds without oxygen, oxygen beds, ventilators and ICU beds by October 1st.

By October 1st, hospitals will lack around 3,191 beds without oxygen. But the PMC has managed to arranged 589 beds without oxygen in the last five days. From the reported count of 2,066 deficit in oxygen beds, 564 beds were added in PMC, PCMC and rural areas of Pune district. The shortage of ICU beds may be a problem but there are sufficient ICU beds as of now. Whereas in the last six days 81 ICU beds were added in the district, 47 in PMC, 33 in PCMC and 22 in rural areas. According to the Directorate of health education, even the ventilator beds will be short by 250 on 2nd October. In the last five days, 30 more ventilators have been arranged.

Divisional Commissioner Saurabh Rao said “On 2nd October, there will be a shortage of 2500 beds without oxygen. But in the last five days, 598 beds without oxygen have been arranged, so the total shortage of beds without oxygen has reduced by 598. The administration is taking all possible steps to provide beds to hospitals in PMC, PCMC and rural areas.”

Rao also informed that there are 1,769 beds in PMC and a total of 2,200 beds including PCMC and rural areas for which oxygen facility is not available. Therefore all the hospitals have been directed to fill oxygen to these 2,200 beds till 30 September. The hospital will get an authorized order from the Municipal commissioner and District collector. If the hospitals are having any issue then the Municipal Corporation is ready to solve it.

PMC focuses on “My family, my responsibility” campaign

 

“This week the Pune administration’s main focus is on the campaign ‘My Family, My Responsibility.'” In the last six days, around 12,60,000 people were surveyed in the Pune district. We have identified nearly 11,500 people with symptoms of COVID-19 and respiratory infections out of which 1,653 tested positive for the virus. And we are also conducting the comorbidity survey. Around 17,229 comorbid patients’ swabs have been tested. Among them, 657 have tested positive for Covid-19,” informed Rao.

Manpower shortage

The private hospitals are ready to increase the count of beds but these hospitals are facing the shortage of trained medical staff. On this issue, the Pune Municipal Commissioner Vikram Kumar said, “A meeting was held on 18 September with the organisation of doctors. It is expected that doctors and other medical staff will come forward for help. The medical staff have the option to work in government hospitals, private hospitals, managing telecommunication and other sectors related to COVID care and private doctors.”

Adding to this Rao said, “Sassoon General Hospital will increase their bed capacity by 300. The government hospitals are facing a shortage of manpower. I have instructed the management to hire if the agencies are willing to provide staff. Even medical college students have been hired by hospitals.” 

He also said that we are not seeking help from doctors from other states as adequate sources are present in Pune. We already have 50 per cent nursing staff from Kerela.

 

Central government stops supply of PPE and testing kits

Rao said that the central government has stopped the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) kits and testing kits in Maharashtra. The Maharashtra government is going to raise this issue with the centre.

Charging extra bills

“The hospitals have been ordered not to charge extra bills. Around 11,062 bills have been checked by the squad and around Rs 2.5 crore bills have been revised,” Rao said.